|
|
| GeoCommunity Mailing List |
| |
| Mailing List Archives |
| Subject: | [gislist] Sum PC tablet with disk drive question |
| Date: |
12/09/2003 09:45:01 AM |
| From: |
Elizabeth Martinez |
|
|
Greetings,
I am still in the process of working on the original question but
thought I would sum responses and progress.
The original question was:
I have been looking into getting a tablet for a staff member.
Ruggedization is a criteria, but I got all the way up to a purchase
decision with Itronix and realized that there was no disk drive. I
could hook up an external drive but that defeated the purpose of
portability. I also wanted to get a GPS built into the tablet, again to
minimize the items being juggled in the woods. In the ideal world for
this staff member, he could take the tablet from desktop ( load roads,
topos, property shape files), to truck (navigate to property with GPS
and ArcGIS extension), to woods (walk to timber cruise points and
evaluate data in spreadsheet with what is actually there) and back
without having to transfer data from machine to machine. The tablet
would be used by our Director of Investment Analysis for land appraisals
for acquisition, evaluation of timber cruises, and due diligence work. I
realize All In One tends to mean you give up some features, but has
anyone got a recommendation for this sort of application? We use ArcGIS
8.3. Also looking into getting a GPS digital camera ( OK so now he has
to carry another piece of equipment) Ideas?
First, the question of the internal CD drive.
>From Huron Geomatics (Canada) - If the tablet has a PCMCIA slot you can
use a USB Memory stick to transfer data.
This could solve the problem with the Itronix, however you give up
ruggedization integrity when items are plugged in externally. I have
found a tablet PC from Motion Computing ( Motion M1300 tablet PC) that
has a Pentium M processor, a 12.1 inch display and wireless connectivity
( check out their site at www.motioncomputing.com) . It has a docking
station so it can be used as a desktop, and it has a dvd/cdrw combo
drive. As advertised it is a "...full-desktop experience...within the
framework of a fully mobile, wireless Tablet PC". Recent news ( December
2) indicate that it is also available with a screen that can be used in
indoor as well as outdoor applications. But it is not ruggedized ( I
have not researched this further so I may find that it has a ruggedized
version, I will let you know).
Another lister wanted to know if it needed to be a tablet.
I have just ordered a Compaq/HP iPAQ with a GPS card and expansion
sleeve with a CF digital camera. I know there is a big difference
between a tablet and palm/handheld, but using ArcPad forms you could
validate the data required and attach an image where required .... and
all other requirements ...would be met.
I like this idea as the fall back if I cannot get a tablet, but I am
holding out for the tablet "grab-and-go" for the time being. The staff
I work with travel a lot, and are in and out of commercial aircraft,
chartered planes, rental cars, offices, and in the woods frequently
within the span of a day. Juggling gadgets has become hazardous ( for
the gadgets ). Cell phones, digital cameras, GPS units, laptops, have
all been dropped (floors, mud, lakes, roads), rained and snowed on,
jostled in dusty trucks, and lost. Finding a place to put the laptop (
for displaying the map), the GPS unit (plugged into the laptop) and cell
phone in a truck and then moving around into other vehicles with others
is a hassle ( and don't forget the camera).
>From a staff member at the USDA Forest Service I got the following
description of an ultimate field tool.
The instrument I envision is inexpensive, rugged, lightweight, and
daylight viewable. I believe it should have a large screen (say 7x9 or
8x10 inches) and enough storage and processing power to provide field
portability of geospatial data files and ability to connect to GPS to
create a moving map display with my location tracking on the map. I want
access to geospatially referenced image files (probably a DOQ) together
with digitized portions of aerial photographs which I can view
stereoscopically on the tool's screen. This will permit you to see the
image of the area in which you are standing in 3D on the viewer.
I want the device to support a small digital camera, probably as a
plug-in (component failure or upgrade would not require sending in the
whole unit for repair), so I can take pictures of the plot on the
ground, time tag them (cheap software packages exist that do this) to
the site on which I am standing, and enter the images and metadata into
the geospatial database. I want the unit to accept screen input of
script notes in addition to holding data collection forms, and I want
these all to be geospatially referenced to plot and image locations. And
finally, I probably want the system Bluetooth enabled so I can transmit
data to my truck for storage or retransmittal to another l
|
|
Sponsored by:
For information
regarding
advertising rates
Click Here!
|
